Hearing people are not defined by their ability to hear (except within the Deaf community) so it is something taken for granted. D/deaf people are always defined by their deafness and are stereotyped. How often I have been told "you speak so well!". It makes me feel angry, b/c my hearing loss is postlingual, so I have a memory of sound. I feel sometimes like I don't want to voice b/c it is making hearing expectations of other prelingually deaf, so they will compare the next D/deaf person with me and figure that the next person doesn't try as hard, when, in fact, they must try much harder!
These are just some reasons why the Deaf community feels stigmatized by hearing people, and why it can be difficult to get "accepted" into the community. Imagine the difficulty of white parents adopting a black child, and then calling around to black organizations to try to give the child a healthy understanding of who he/she is. The same feelings will come into play.
If the D/deaf children can feel secure in the unconditional love of their family, then their is not reason not to give them access to ASL and the Deaf community without fear that you as parents or family will be rejected later on.
—K.K.
"I am HOH, originally from birth borderline for school but I did well with the help of the L.A. City Schools. Now I am 58 and 5 years ago, after years of slowly deteriorating hearing, but not too bad, I had a big loss to where I now have large hearing aids and can't hear without them. I am gay and in a long-term, 23 year relationship with a 100% Hearing man, very understanding and supportive of me.
First of all, I think the chat room was rude with respect to the original person who started this thread and she was unlucky in that no one had empathy & tried to help her or guide her to a place where her concerns could be met.
But I don't agree with the woman with the deaf son who is apparently rejecting the Deaf community and prefers a very non-Deaf way of life. As a gay man, it struck me as similar to the way gay people try to adapt to the people near them, saying what they want to hear, not really sharing their innermost feelings, often even with themselves.
If I could I would instantly be able to Sign. It's not as easy to learn a language when you're older and also I live in a smaller town with no Deaf friends to communicate with in order to practice. In many ways my spouse/partner would find it easier to learn Sign as he's very visually-oriented which am not. But I wish that I could learn Sign and had that feeling of being in a language where I don't feel constantly under stress to make sure I'm understanding what's happening or putting pressure on him to relay everything to me.
Oh, and I can certainly understand and agree with the explanation for the defensiveness of many Deaf people encountered by various people in this thread, as you always feel a bit left out, very much like you're not getting everything, and often feel you have to depend on Hearing people to orient you.
As for the original woman with the HOH child, perhaps you can get help through this site in finding out what would be the best long-term for your child. I wish her the best of luck and feel her child is lucky to have a mother who is so understanding that there is a problem besides the deafness itself and works to help her child in her future."
—M.F.
"I'm a hearing person with a slight hearing loss. But, I consider myself part of the deaf (as well as hearing) community, Because, I have the ability to sign. You have to consider deaf culture. What the deaf consider rude, and what the hearing consider rude, are to different things. Like turning the lights on, and off. Hearing people think that the person doing it is a jokester, but in the deaf community, it's a way to get attention I don't condone, what these people did. It was very inconsiderate, by any standard."
—P.K.
"I just read about a mother trying desperately to get information about deafness and what to do with her HOH daughter. I remember when I went away to college in California, I lived in a deaf dorm and was not accepted. I knew I was rusty in signing and I was HOH. Severely. I was not accepted in the community until I graduated and left. Yes, there is a difference, Deaf and deaf. I was considered deaf, which means I was born however, I didn't come from a long line of generational deaf. I was shunned even by the teachers there at the college. I never told anyone how hurt I was, I just kept doing what I did best, talk with them and help them adjust to living w/o mom or away from one community to another.
